Spinnaker [Distributed: Wednesday, November 1, 2006]

Athletes can often recall their childhood dreams of one day going pro, making millions or landing a full athletic scholarship playing for a power-house school.

True dedication and love for the sport often goes beyond the multi-million dollar deals, celebrity status and shelves of trophies and accolades. Playing in harsh conditions, dealing with injuries, and earning little to no recognition may make people wonder why someone would want to play rugby.

"It takes a really high level of fitness and endurance to play," University of North Florida Rugby President Joel Ruttenber said. "Most of our players have experience in wrestling, soccer and football."

The UNF rugby team has been established since 2003 and has gone to every championship game in its league since then. The rugby team currently has 30 members that compete in both fall and spring seasons, with major competitions taking place in the spring.

Rugby is a club team, and UNF plays against some of the toughest teams in the southeast. Games against Florida State University, the University of Florida and Florida International University are some of the schools the men compete against.

Rugby matches are 80 minutes long with two 40-minute halves, which means that every player on the team has to have good endurance.

"We are only allowed seven substitutions for the entire game," Ruttenber said. "Once you get used to the impact and physical contact, you can then maintain your level of fitness so that you won't get injured as much."

The rugby team meets Mondays and Thursdays at the fields by the Crossings at 7:30 p.m.

There are two captains on the UNF rugby team, alum Brad Stewart and senior William Fletcher. There is also a women's rugby team in Jacksonville, and they practice at the same time as the UNF men's team.

"The sport has a strong team atmosphere," Ruttenber said. "Anybody can come to practice and be on the team. The games are free to attend and we usually have a good turnout of people who come see us play."

In the Osprey Spotlight: Swimmer, Jacqui Beals

What do you get when you cross a girl from Midlothian, Virginia and a passion for swimming? None other than University of North Florida senior swimmer Jacqui Beals.

Beals began swimming in third grade and fell in love with the sport once she learned how to stay afloat.

Competing in the 200, 500, 1000 and the 1650 freestyle events, the Osprey swimmer is constantly striving to better her times.

Her career during high school took its own journey through highs and lows.

"Where I lived in Richmond, Va., we did not have high school swimming," Beals said. "However, I swam on a year-round club team from when I was eight until the time I graduated. I swam better my freshman and sophomore years than I did my junior and senior years. This was due to getting mono my junior year and injuring my shoulder my senior year."

Although there have been many highlights throughout her career here at UNF, one of the biggest has to do with the friendships she has built out of the pool.

"I have really enjoyed the close friendships and bonds that I have made with my teammates throughout my four years here," she said. "I know a lot of these girls will be my friends forever, and we have been through a lot together. We work hard together every day, and it is great to have a team behind you and be behind them."

She has high hopes for the rest of the season, this being her last as an Osprey.

The team will have the privilege of traveling to Long Beach, Calif. in February to compete in the Pacific Coast Conference Meet at the end of the season.

"Since it is my senior year, I want to swim lifetime-best times at the conference meet in February. I want to end my swimming career on a high note," said Beals.

This goal, among others, drives her to every practice and every meet.

"I guess not wanting to fail is the biggest drive in my career," she said. "I do not like to let my team, coaches, or especially myself down in swimming. I have always been competitive, and I use that in my swimming. I think it stems from the fact that I have been swimming since third grade."

Beals also knows that her role model has been the same since around third grade as well.

"Growing up, I looked up to my older sister Elizabeth who is 28. She is my role model," Beals said. "She was smart and had awesome morals. She also has a great relationship with God. She is extremely thoughtful, and I am blessed to have her as a sister. I can go to her for advice because she knows a lot more,"

Some athletes have pre-game rituals. Some jam to music, some pray and some may even punch things to get riled up. Beals, however, usually likes to sit and focus.

"Before meets, first and foremost, I pray, which usually calms me down, Beals said. "I also make sure I eat a good meal, have a good warm-up and try to stay as focused as possible. Sometimes I will listen to music to get myself pumped up."

Meets seem to be the focus of her life, which leaves little time for a foreign word to Beals.

"Free time? What's that?" she said.

Soccer learns from Duke

The University of North Florida men's soccer team has had a season plagued with injuries and hard fought wins.

"Our most experienced players are injured," Coach Ray Bunch said. "We had to play a lot of freshmen and we had a tough time physically."

With the season coming to a close, the Ospreys had some difficult lessons to learn. The team played a tough non-conference game against second ranked Duke University.

"Duke has been in the top five for the past 10 years," Bunch said. "We wanted to gain a lot of experience and know exactly where we need to compete against those league games."

Duke lead 2-0 at the half before finishing the game 5-0, out-shooting the Ospreys 31-3.

"Duke played a lot of upperclassmen," Bunch said. "We were more outmatched physically. We wanted to gain a lot of experience and know exactly where we need to be to compete against top-rated teams."

The last time the Ospreys played a nationally ranked team was in 2005 against 24th-ranked Loyola Marymount University.

The Ospreys then bounced back with a 5-0 win Monday night against Palm Beach Atlantic University.

The Ospreys out-shot the Sailfish 16-13, something Coach Bunch heavily emphasized during previous practices.

"We've been shooting more these last couple of weeks," freshman midfielder Matthew Hollyoak said.

With several players returning to play with injuries, the return of junior goalkeeper Michael Frost contributed to the win with a total of seven saves.

The Ospreys will play their last game on the road against Flagler College in St. Augustine, Nov. 4 at 7 p.m.

The team has a 4-11-2 record for the season.

Basketball set to slam dunk season

November brings basketball season to forefront, top division challenges to follow

The University of North Florida men's basketball team has high expectations and hopes in its second year in Division I status.

The Ospreys have two starters and six letter winners to add leadership and playing experience to a team that consists of eight underclassmen. Despite a difficult first year, finishing the 2005-2006 season with a 6-22 record and 3-17 in the Atlantic Sun Conference, Head Coach Matt Kilcullen is aware that the team is still progressing.

Kilcullen is in his eighth year as the Ospreys' head coach. During the offseason, Kilcullen added three new members to his staff. Kilcullen and his staff emphasized athleticism and size during offseason recruiting.

"We're a work in progress," Kilcullen said. "Last year was our first year playing at the Division I level, and this is our second year in transition. We also have a tough non- conference schedule."

Junior point guard Chris Timberlake and senior forward Rashad Williams are the two returning starters for the Ospreys. Last year, Timberlake made 56 out of 142 3-point attempts and led the team with a field goal percentage of .394. Williams, who averaged 15.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, will be the strong inside force on the team.

Both starters have experience playing at the Division I level, and that experience and leadership is vital for the young Osprey team.

"Every season is different," Timberlake said. "We have different guys and different expectations and this is the best team I've worked with as far as talent."

Junior college forwards Gallo Cham and Arnold Henry are a pair of transfer players who are looking to add depth and size to create a strong interior defense and a more physically aggressive presence.

Coming back to the Osprey lineup is junior center James Grimball.

Grimball missed the 2005-2006 season with a knee injury and also missed parts of the 2004-2005 season with a hand injury. Grimball has the ability to become a force down low if he can remain healthy while adjusting to the Division I level of competition.

The Ospreys return with four reserve guards in Aaron Caruthers, Cortez Riley, Ian Gibson and Jonson Yousefzadeh. Instead of recruiting a class of freshmen players to the team, Kilcullen and his coaching staff decided to recruit from the junior college level in hopes of having more experienced players who can have an easier time making the transition to Division I athletics.

Freshman guard Germaine Sparkes is the one of three freshman players and the only freshman signee. Freshman forward Chip Polite and guard Richard Guadagnolo are both walk-ons who will add depth and scoring abilities off the bench.

"Some of the things that we're teaching them [new players], is that you can't think the little fouls are going to count," Williams said. "You have to always stay aggressive when you're playing D-I level because the game's going to be rough and physical. You just have to learn how to play through it."

The Osprey team will be looking for a reliable 3-point shooter to step up and become a scoring threat from outside. Timberlake may very well alternate between both shooting and point guard positions. Another experienced guard is sophomore Cortez Riley who logged 33.7 minutes per game last year as a reserve and who will also see time in the point guard position.

Possible players competing for the starting shooting guard position could be Sparks or Caruthers. The third guard, Gibson, will threaten opponents with the steal.

Both Timberlake and Williams know what's expected of them, but what they expect of themselves is also important and will set the tone for the rest of the team.

"Some of the things I plan to work on this season is leadership skills and leading by example," Timberlake said. "I know I need to be more vocal out there and be a better leader."

The Ospreys will have some tough games to start the season, with road games against St. John's University and the defending 2005-2006 national champions, University of Florida Gators.

"I want to see how we compete against UF," Williams said. "When we play that game, we can then judge the level of competition that we play at."

From the Cheap Seats

Athletes run, shoot, swing ... and 'Facebook'

I decided to join Facebook earlier this year to help promote our upcoming athletic events to the student body and to get a feel for what today's college students are into like music, movies, television shows, books, politics, etc.

I've been out of school for about a decade now, and the mindset (and technology) has completely changed, so it's important for me to thoroughly understand my target market.

For the few who don't recognize the Web site, it's a popular online social network for college students, founded in 2004 by a group of Harvard University students.

Originally allowing only people with college e-mail addresses to register, it seemed more exclusive than similar online social sites such as Myspace.com.

Since then, Facebook has become for college students as much a daily tool as notebooks and pens. Many students post class schedules, contact info, photos and other personal information on their Facebook sites.

They can send messages via Facebook to the point that "to Facebook" has become a verb, as in "I'll Facebook you the details about when that party is." It's even almost safe to assume that many students will check their Facebook messages instead of e-mail.

Facebook says that it is the seventh most trafficked site on the World Wide Web, with 9.5 million registered users. That's extremely strong exposure for a site that's just two years old.

Unfortunately, a number of college sports programs around the country came under fire last academic year when athletes started posting photos of hazing rituals.

In response to those incidents - and the larger trend of increased exposure of athletes on social networking Web sites - university athletic departments are cautioning students to be aware that their behavior in cyberspace is easily accessible to the public.

The University of North Florida Athletics Department has advised its athletes about the potential dangers of both inappropriate behavior and the subsequent postings on sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com.

The main message is that there's nothing wrong with participating in social networking sites, just don't do anything to embarrass yourself, your family or your team. It might even come back to haunt you when going to a job interview, because employers use these sites to check out potential employees.

Especially now, you have to be hyper-vigilant about everything you do. And if you do make mistakes, hopefully people don't call you out on them.

Hopefully, the mistakes you make are small and correctable. One small safety measure would be to untag photos with names of friends.

It's really just using common sense on what is appropriate for public viewing (i.e. good rule of thumb: if you don't want your grandmother seeing it, don't post it).

I will say my favorite UNF group name that's been created so far is "Okay So an Osprey May Not Be the Biggest and the Baddest Mascot Ever, but they can still whoop ass." A little wordy, but it does say it all...

Disclaimer: The opinions offered here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the university or its Athletics Dept.

Print Edition

SPORTS

True Commitment

In the Osprey Spotlight: Swimmer, Jacqui Beals

Soccer learns from Duke

Basketball set to slam dunk season

November brings basketball season to forefront, top division challenges to follow

From the Cheap Seats

Athletes run, shoot, swing ... and 'Facebook'

Sports in Brief

Cross Country finishes season at Atlantic Sun Conference Championship

Flight Schedule

Osprey Scoreboard